But what's it about? Well, The Hour focuses on a group of people setting up a new current affairs show in the 1950s. But that's not all - there's conspiracy and a mysterious murder to sink your teeth into as well.

When Digital Spy visited the set of The Hour, Dominic and Romola talked to journalists about the show and their characters Hector and Bel, so read on to find out what they had to say...

What attracted you to the show?Dominic: "The draw for me was Romola and Ben."Romola: "Mainly Romola!"Dominic "Absolutely, especially when I discovered we have an affair! And also Abi Morgan. And then I read the scripts and it seemed very exciting and an interesting subject matter and period. I was fascinated with the character of Hector Madden and I wanted to portray to the viewers the interesting dilemma of a man straddling the old world and the new after the war."

Romola, there were very few women at that level of the BBC at that time...Romola: "One! There was one, yeah. A woman called Grace Wyndham Goldie who I think the character of Bel is based on."

Obviously Bel is very unusual - what do you think makes her special?Romola: "I think she's probably quite representative of a lot of women at the time, except she commits herself very much to her career. So I suppose the thing that singles her out is being very single-minded in her objectives. She's well educated, went to Cheltenham Ladies' College, Cambridge, all of those kind of accolades, but I think a lot of other women of that period, had they wanted to go into journalism they would have gone into print journalism, writing for the women's magazines - Vogue and all that. She makes the decision very early on to crack into a competitive male world. Not only that, but a world that had not really flexed its muscles in terms of what it could achieve, which is what our show is really about - television news becoming much more powerful and dynamic. She's prepared to sacrifice having a marriage or children which women of that period would have had to have done, so yeah, I think she's representative in some ways but exceptional in others."

You mentioned the affair between Hector and Bel, Dominic - what's their relationship like?Dominic: "Have you seen Broadcast News? It's a love triangle like that, and I'm the William Hurt character, the frontman. Bel's not quite like that because she's my boss and she's... I don't know. She's my boss and yes, we get it on, but it can't really last because I'm married."Romola: "I think the love story is a three-hander between myself, who's the producer of the show, Dominic, who's the frontman of the show, and the lead, really, which is Freddie [Whishaw]. He's home affairs editor of the show but he's brainy, bright, grammar school educated, rising up through the ranks, the first sign of real social mobility. And he and I have a great kind of friendship, a slightly Harry Met Sally-style bantering friendship which is never quite a love affair. I think Hector's love affair is much more... physical! And that's obviously a great threat to their friendship."

Does one of your characters push more for the affair? It must have been difficult for career women at the time.Romola: "I think because Bel couldn't really be married and do her job... I mean, people forget married women didn't have careers. She has to resign herself to being single for her whole life if she wants a career so that means..."Dominic: "...Serial affairs!"Romola: "Extra-marital affairs... I think they both fall into it quite naturally."

When The Hour is being set up, do all the characters have the same approach to it?Dominic: "I think Hector is trying to be as uncontroversial as possible and sees himself as someone who is the brake on any radical ideas, and is, I suppose, the force of conservatism in a way."Romola: "I think Bel's very stuck in the middle of Hector and Freddie when it comes to the politics. Not only because she's the producer and therefore naturally probably a diplomat, but also because she's a woman who maybe can't really afford to have the kind of extreme political belief that they can in the workplace."

Does Hector feel threatened by Freddie - this young man willing to rock the boat?Dominic: "Oh absolutely, yeah. We met an amazing guy who's on this who came in, and he used to run the World Service Arabic section. He remembers it so well - there's a code of manners and conduct among the war veterans and the pre-war [generation] that was swept aside by the younger generation, and Freddie represents that new generation. Hector, I think, thinks it's bad manners to question the government and disloyal to ask difficult questions of a serving government minister, and so it's a whole different world for him. Very much he's threatened by Freddie. Threatened that way, and also threatened in terms of his love because Bel gets on far better with him - she's much easier with Freddie than she is with Hector."

So do Hector and Freddie clash or is it left unspoken?Dominic: "Oh no, they very much clash. What happens is they clash and then they actually find a bit of common ground throughout the series but it's very much a good fiery clash."

Does Hector begin to adapt to the new way of doing things?Dominic: "Yes, he does, and then he adapts again - pulling back to avoid the opprobrium that comes down on the show when it gets out of hand and the authorities want to censor it! He jumps ship and goes with the authorities to save his bacon."

Is the show a work-hard, play-hard thing? Do we see them after hours?Dominic: "Hopefully, yeah. It's all hard drinking and everyone bonking each other! Our lives are so boring nowadays!"

What did you think when you first walked onto the set?Dominic: "It's extraordinary, the detail. You get a sheet of paper which I have to hold while I'm being broadcast, which is in the background anyway. There's no way it'll ever be on screen, and yet it's a detailed timetable or list of detailed questions as it would have been."Romola: "You'll sometimes get someone say to you, 'Do you want something to hold?' because quite often it's nice to have a prop or something. So you'll get a piece of paper and it's normally just the lunch menu! You'll get a piece of paper on this job and it'll be typed from a Corona typewriter and it'll be the schedule for a made-up show that isn't even in the script with all period dates of the shows that we would be covering. I think the production design might have OCD! It's really, really accurate."

That must help though.Romola: "It makes a huge difference. Although sometimes when you're doing a scene it can be distracting because you're going, 'Oh, I'll just refer to this piece of... Bloody hell! Amazing prop!'"

How did you research the period?Romola: "We got lots of help actually, because obviously Abi researched the show incredibly thoroughly, so when I was cast we had huge amounts of material that was singled out already. The woman that my character was based on, there's quite a lot written about her because she was such an anomaly in the BBC at the time and across the board in the media, I think. There was lots of really interesting footage of Lime Studios, there were a couple of great documentaries made about it. There was a really fantastic, really long documentary about Suez that we all saw which was great because I didn't know very much about the Suez Crisis."Dominic: "Suez is the background really to the whole season and the news that we're talking about and it was an amazing three-hour documentary about that. Then there's a lot of YouTube about Richard Dimbleby and all those people with extraordinary haircuts and a rather patronising tone towards the viewers. [speaks with received pronunciation] 'She's lovely, she's smart, debutante of the season'."

Did you find yourself doing the broadcasting voice a lot?Dominic: "Absolutely, yes. And I thought, 'Well, we've got to. Especially my character, he's ex-army, I'll have to talk like this the whole time'. I presume that's how they did talk all the time. And the director said, 'No, you can't do that, we won't pay you!' So it's toned down slightly, but when I'm on television [it's there]. The way it's written as well is very sort of jolly and clipped and slightly patronising. I think I've gone too far on it but I just can't help myself!"

Do you think you could cope with being a live broadcaster?Dominic: "I'd love to, yeah. Well, I don't know. I suppose I think I'd be better as the 1950s anchor."Romola: "Patronising! Really, really patronising!"Dominic: "Patronising and not particularly clever! Well, they were quite clever. But Paxman, you know, I wouldn't come off great. But maybe I could do some sort of MTV thing."

What do you make of the comparisons to Mad Men?Dominic: "Great, I love Mad Men. I think it's bound to come a cropper if we pretend that we're the English Mad Men or whatever. I once did a BBC show called Out of Hours where I was billed as the English George Clooney and it was a catastrophe! I was a doctor and I just looked like a tw*t. We don't have the money Mad Men's got. I suppose it's a bit earlier than Mad Men as a period. But it is in vogue, now, that period and the look. I think it's a wonderful period for clothes and hair."Romola: "England was very, very different from America. I think the thing that's really struck me about doing the show - because I love Mad Men, completely love it - is how impossible it really is to try and make it like Mad Men because England was miserable - post-war, rationing, bombed - and it was still a highly colonial environment. That was what Suez was about, it was about colonialism, England still fighting over its empire. Mad Men is about really modern concerns - it's about advertising, it's about capitalism - and Britain is still fighting over ownership over tracts of land in the Middle East. It's a completely different environment."

How would you characterise the show - why should people watch?Dominic: "It's a murder mystery, romance..."Romola: "...Thriller, political..."Dominic: "...Amazing political background. It's extraordinary how Abi has woven this murder mystery into a love triangle romance and all with a huge geopolitical background of Suez and the emergence of serious news programmes on the telly in this country."Romola: "I was talking to Abi and said, 'It's sort of meta genre'. And she just looked at me as if I was mad, completely mad! And she was like, 'No, I just want to have lots of different things for people to watch'."

Do you think the show could return for another series?Dominic: "I think so, yes. We're contracted to as well!"Romola: "We have to!"Dominic: "But definitely. The great thing is that the background, the news background, changes the complexion of the whole drama. So a new news story would completely refresh the format."

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